Top 5 left-handed openers from New Zealand

2 Mark Richardson

Mark Richardson

He started off his cricket career as a left-arm off spinner, later on, became a batsman. Hemade his debut for New Zealand when he was 29, and by the time he finished 4 years later, Mark Richardson had become one of the best opening batsmen in the country's recent history.

Richardson was a throwback to an older generation of opening batsmen, who prioritised crease occupation over everything else and for New Zealand, his presence at the top proved to be an incredible asset. The team was not great at the time but Richardson's presence gave the middle-order batsmen a lot of protection.

In the early years of his career, he had an average of 50 but it dropped later on and he ended his 38 Test match career with an average of 44.77. He scored 2776 runs, which is the highest among all left-handed opening batsmen who have played for New Zealand and notched up 4 centuries, in addition to 19 fifties.

However, it was his strike rate of only 37.66, which showed that he was a batsman who was one of the most difficult batsmen to dismiss in his generation.